Beacon Hill News

Healey Comment Suggests Saving Haverhill Campus of Holy Family Hospital Still Possible

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WHAV staff contributed to this report by Alison Kuznitz. Gov. Maura T. Healey hinted Thursday that Holy Family Hospital’s Haverhill campus might still be saved. With potential deals, such as Lawrence General Hospital’s potential bid for Holy Family Hospital, still up in the air, the governor’s new mention of six campuses for five Steward Hospitals suggests a potential path for keeping Holy Family Hospital. As only WHAV reported last Saturday, Sen. Barry R. Finegold s said he didn’t know the contents of Lawrence General Hospital’s final bid, but noted, “I believe the Haverhill Campus of Holy Family is integral to the health care needs of the Merrimack Valley and should he included in LGH bid.”

Healey pleaded Thursday for the company’s lenders to strike a deal to allow the facilities to be sold, acknowledging financial stakes for taxpayers amid repeated delays. The governor confirmed Massachusetts has been sending financial aid to the hospitals to keep them afloat through August, but she wouldn’t say whether the latest snag in U.S. Bankruptcy Court may end up costing Massachusetts more money.

Beacon Hill News

Negotiators, Including Finegold, Seek to Hash Out Economic Development Bill Differences

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Lawmakers negotiating a major economic development bill have just over a week to strike a compromise on a bond bill reauthorizing the state’s longstanding life sciences initiative. The Senate favors a smaller borrowing and tax incentive package for the life sciences sector compared to the House and Gov. Maura T. Healey, and the differences need to be settled during closed-door negotiations. Conference committee members Reps. Aaron Michlewitz, Jerald Parisella and David Muradian, and Sens. Barry R. Finegold, senate chair of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies; Mike Rodrigues; and Peter Durant met for the first time Monday.

Haverhill

Sens. Markey and Sanders Plan to Force Steward CEO to Answer Questions in Congress

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A congressional committee led by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey plans to subpoena Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre, after reports of financial mismanagement have led to the hospital chain declaring bankruptcy. In the course of its bankruptcy proceedings, Steward opened bids on its seven hospitals operating in Massachusetts, including Holy Family Hospital with campuses in Methuen and Haverhill, which were due at the start of this week. As of Wednesday, the state’s top public health official had no information on where those bids stood. “Perhaps more than anyone else in America, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, the CEO of Steward Health Care, is the poster child for the type of outrageous corporate greed that is permeating through our for-profit health care system,” read a joint statement Thursday from Markey, who chairs the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, chair of the HELP Committee. “Working with private equity forces, Dr. de la Torre became obscenely wealthy by loading up hospitals from Massachusetts to Arizona with billions in debt and sold the land underneath these hospitals to real estate executives who charge unsustainably high rent.

Haverhill

DPH Commissioner in Dark on Steward Sale Bids, Including Holy Family Hospital

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State Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein said Wednesday that officials are in the dark for now on how the critical bidding process worked out for Steward Health Care’s hospitals in Massachusetts. Bids were due Monday as part of Steward’s complex bankruptcy proceedings. Goldstein told the Public Health Council on Wednesday morning he had no information on the bids submitted, and expressed hope that updates would come later in the day. “We’d hoped we would have some information about these bids yesterday, but as of early this morning, we have not heard from Steward or others about the bidding process—nothing about the bidders, the number of bids, or whether all the hospitals received bids has been shared with the department,” Goldstein said during the virtual council meeting. Steward took bids on its seven hospitals operating in Massachusetts: Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Morton Hospital in Taunton, St.

Haverhill

Lawrence General Hospital Medical Affairs Chief: Holy Family’s ‘Care is Clearly Declining’

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As state officials continue to encourage people to seek care at Steward Health Care’s eight hospitals in Massachusetts despite the company’s bankruptcy, a doctor from a neighboring hospital said the messaging doesn’t tell the whole story of what is actually happening on the ground. Since Steward filed for bankruptcy in Texas last week, Gov. Maura T. Healey and others have sought to make clear that the legal proceeding does not necessarily mean that anything has changed for patients, urging people to keep their appointments at Steward facilities and encouraging residents to seek emergency care at Steward hospitals without reservation. Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein told the Public Health Council on Wednesday that the state’s “consistent message to patients in the community has been and continues to be that all Steward hospitals in Massachusetts remain open, patients should keep up with their health care needs, maintain their appointments, screenings and tests.”

But the chief of medical affairs at Lawrence General Hospital, which is near to Steward’s Holy Family Hospital in Methuen and Haverhill, told the council that underneath the state’s rhetoric “is a reality, which is that in spite of these hospitals remaining open, their level of intensity of care is clearly declining.”

“And that’s a message that is not really advertised, but it is real. For the ones that are next door to them, we can see that vital support services—not just having emergency room physicians and nurses, but you need to have orthopedics, neurosurgery, you need to have all of these other things to be able to care for these patients. So, what we are finding is that they get in, they get evaluated, but then they get transferred out.

Education

State Senate Unveils ‘MassEducate’ Free Community College Plan; Would Start 2025 if Approved

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Senate Democrats Monday unveiled plans to make community college free in Massachusetts, starting as early as this fall. The plan, which will be part of the Senate’s fiscal 2025 budget to be fully unveiled today, would invest $75.5 million to cover tuition and fees for all residents, and offer a stipend to some students of up to $1,200 for books, supplies and other costs. “I’m thrilled that we have taken access to higher education to the next level, as this initiative will bolster our educated workforce and lay the foundation for generations to come,” Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues said in a statement. “Tuition free community college impacts individuals most in need and whom otherwise would not be afforded this opportunity. It will greatly help to keep our workforce graduates stand ready to meet the challenges of a global economy.”

The Senate budget will also continue fiscal 2024 investments such as $18 million in free nursing programs at community colleges and $24 million that the state is currently investing in free community college for residents over 25.

Haverhill

Amid Steward Health Concerns, Walsh Lectures Legislature on Making Decisions in ‘Haste’

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Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh issued a broad warning Tuesday about hasty legislative solutions to address the role of private equity in health care, as officials and hospital leaders continue to brace for potentially major care disruptions amid Steward Health Care’s financial challenges. Walsh did not invoke any specific proposal when asked about the role of state or federal legislation to respond to the Steward crisis, following recent Beacon Hill hearings focused on the negative impact of private equity on patient care and possible strategies to boost regulatory oversight of health care transactions. “I think that the health care system in our country is really, really complicated, and I worry about broad brushstrokes that say, ‘private equity bad, not-for-profit good,’” Walsh told reporters following an event at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “I think we have seen an extreme set of circumstances, the choices that Steward made as a health system to capitalize their system—it just didn’t work,” the secretary continued. “And so what we need to do when we get patients, and staff, and people and regions through this is sort of step back.

Haverhill

Steward Health Care to Sell Physician Group to Optum, Pending Regulatory Approval

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Steward Health Care, owner of Holy Family Hospitals in Haverhill and Methuen, said it plans to sell its physician group, Stewardship Health, to a UnitedHealth Group’s subsidiary, Minnesota-based Optum Financial. Stewardship Health is the parent of Stewardship Health Medical Group, which employs primary care physicians and other clinicians across nine states, according to the state’s Health Policy Commission. The company’s hospitals were not included in the deal. “This is a significant proposed change involving two large medical providers, both in Massachusetts and nationally, with important implications for the delivery and cost of health care across Massachusetts,” Health Policy Commission Director David Seltz said. “Details of the proposal will be reviewed by the HPC to examine potential impacts on health care costs, quality, access and equity.